Every day, we make decisions that, in small and large ways, affect the lives of animals. But every once in a while, special circumstances arise in which we can exert unusual influence to ensure the protection of animals from callous treatment.

On November 2, the citizens of Maine will have just such a chance: They will render judgment on three cruel and unsporting practices used to hunt bears. Question 2, an election day referendum that The HSUS strongly supports, asks Maine voters, "Do you want to make it a crime to hunt bears with bait, traps, or dogs, except to protect property, public safety, or for research?"

These methods—preferred among the unskilled and indolent within the hunting community—deserve to be outlawed for all but the specifically exempted purposes, and if there is any justice for animals in Maine, they will be.

After Maine legislators stonewalled attempts to advance legislation to outlaw these practices, more than 1,000 volunteers turned out at state fairs and shopping malls, and collected the signatures of registered voters to put the question directly to the citizenry. The volunteers collected approximately 103,000 signatures, more than double the required number to place the measure on the ballot. This grassroots effort gives Mainers a unique opportunity to correct their state's errant bear management policies.

The Case for Yes

The case for "yes" on Question 2 does not rest solely upon the conviction that the baiting, hounding, and trapping of bears are unfair and unsporting methods. As experience in other states demonstrates, these objectionable practices are also unnecessary. Once the majority votes "yes" on Question 2, sound and sporting management approaches will take hold in Maine, as they have elsewhere.

There isn't much one can say to defend hunting with dogs or traps, which together account for approximately 500 bear killings each year in Maine. Chasing a bear into a tree with the aid of radio-collared hounds and gunning the animal down from a branch may give the shooter a thrill, but it certainly doesn't qualify as a fair chase. Neither does catching a bear in a painful snare or leghold trap, only to let the animal suffer there for untold hours. Maine is the only state that even permits trapping of bears for the purposes of "sport."

Shooting a bear over bait is less well-known, but it can be summed up in Pavlovian terms. Take a putrid pile of rotting donuts, fruit, and grease, set it out in one spot every day, and the bears will show up like clockwork. A few of those involved with baiting are at least honest enough to admit there is no sport involved. As one outfitter's advertisement boasts, "We do whatever it takes to get you a shot." More than 3,000 bears are killed this way in Maine every year. Short of permitting hunters to shoot caged bears at a zoo, state wildlife policy can't sink much lower.

Despite the deceptive claims of Maine wildlife officials and outfitters, there is nothing traditional about bear baiting. Indeed, it was not a major activity in Maine until the 1970s, when its primary beneficiaries—commercial hunting outfitters—pushed for a policy that would let them make a living selling off bear shooting opportunities to hunters from outside the state. Today, 80 percent of the successful hunters hail from addresses outside the Pine Tree State. A bait site loaded with garbage virtually guarantees a bear kill and thus serves as a strong lure for their money.

Bears have excited the human imagination for centuries, and command a special place in our literature, art, and mythology. They are solitary animals who spend most of their time searching for food. Thus, there is something especially wicked in a policy that turns them into donut addicts, only to be shot at point-blank range to satisfy the narrow interests of outfitters and trophy hunters.

Even so, Question 2 has attracted predictable adversaries in the form of pro-hunting organizations that, for all their endless talk about sportsmanship, lack the moral compass to reject these degrading practices. They do not acknowledge the most obvious thing—that these are all unsporting methods which self-respecting hunters of a prior generation would have rejected outright.

Please Don't Feed the Bears

From a wildlife management perspective, there are many things wrong with baiting. Most conspicuously, the use of bait contravenes a fundamental and widely accept tenet of modern bear management—one known to generations of Americans who have visited state and national parks and forests. The admonition is plain: "Please don't feed the bears."

Wildlife managers have long recognized that habituating bears to human food sources makes them more likely to raid campgrounds, break into cars and cabins, and generally make a nuisance. Why would this principle apply to everyone except those who want to shoot bears for sport?

As for the claim that without baiting, trapping, and hounding, bear hunting will cease and bears will run amok in Maine, it is demonstrably untrue. In every state in which The HSUS has supported bans on baiting and hunting with hounds, we have been attentive to the subsequent findings of wildlife agencies. In 1992, Colorado voters banned bear baiting and hounding. Two years later, Oregon voters did the same. In 1996, Washington and Massachusetts voters followed suit.

Statistics from these states' own agencies prove that shooting over bait, and hunting with hounds and traps, are in no way necessary for the control of bear populations. Despite pre-referendum fear-mongering to the contrary, bear hunting continues in each of these states, and in fact wildlife officials are reporting some unusual stats: record numbers of hunting licenses being sold, additional revenues from hunter tourism, and stable total kills.

A Lack of Ethics

Whatever else guides and outfitters might claim, they can't argue with the fact that Maine is now the only state in the nation that allows all three bear hunting practices. If other states don't need these practices, Maine doesn't either.

Governor John Baldacci's implication that citizens should trust the state's wildlife experts about the best way to kill bears smacks of disingenuousness, given the agency's policy methodology. For one thing, officials at the Maine Division of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) don't seem to care a whit about the evidence from other states. More shockingly, an agency spokesman explicitly stated that the MDIFW doesn't give any weight to ethics in its development of policy.

This lack of moral introspection would appear to be a convenient oversight for a governor and MDIFW officials who tend to focus on the revenue generated by these ethically despicable methods. Such arrogance is simply not acceptable. Both Maine citizens who support hunting and those who do not have a right to expect the state to enforce standards of fair chase.

Baldacci's lack of ethical clarity stands in stark contrast to the moral backbone demonstrated by Percival P. Baxter, a forward-thinking Maine politician who as a Republican state legislator and governor from 1921 to 1924, regularly placed his reputation and his office behind the cause of animal protection. After his political career ended, Baxter purchased the lands that become the magnificent Baxter State Park, and did his best to make it a safe haven for the wild animals he so dearly loved.

"As governor," Baxter stated in his January 1925 farewell message, "I have not hesitated to plead for the animals of our state who are unable to speak for themselves. I have called attention to the duties we owe all of these creatures and have emphasized the need of our being kind and merciful toward them. I have felt it proper to criticize certain so-called 'sports' that involve cruelty."

Our states need more policy makers with the courage and conviction of Baxter. That includes the officials who serve on our state wildlife commissions, which have come to be dominated by ideologically driven hunting advocates who sneer at the views of non-hunters and even responsible hunters, and reflexively pander to the loudest and most extreme voices within the hunting industry.

Minority Rule

Right now, it's the same story all over the place. Whenever wildlife commissions and agencies deliberate about the fate of animals under their management, it is the hunter, not the hunted, who receives 99% of all consideration. And the wishes of the non-hunting majority often are treated with contempt. State legislatures also have too long kow-towed to bear guides, outfitters and the like. In Maine, fish and wildlife committees dominated by rural legislators are overrun with individuals happy to bend to the whims and wishes of special interest hunting groups.

Given this state of affairs, the referendum and initiative process, a legacy of the Progressive era (1890-1920), is an essential democratic measure. It presents Americans with an opportunity to enact their will directly against the obstructionism of politicians and administrators loyal to the extremist segment of the hunting fraternity.

Hunting organizations both within and (ironically) outside of Maine have hitched their wagons to the argument that The HSUS and its allies are outsiders who have no legitimate right to support humane measures in Maine. Never mind that The HSUS represents nearly 50,000 constituents in the state, among them the current vice chair of our board of directors and one of the organization's past board chairs. Our adversaries aren't entitled to make this argument when the hunting practices they seek to defend cater primarily to out-of-state hunters looking for a guaranteed trophy kill.

In the final analysis, of course, it does not matter who backs the referendum, for it is the voters of Maine who will decide. And we are not afraid to let them do so.